She was my director at North Harbor Medical Network in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
I was thirty-five, a Portuguese medical interpreter, and apparently the only person in that room who thought putting someone’s name on a hospital record without their knowledge was a serious problem.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Three weeks earlier, my biggest problem had been a man who lived twenty feet from my apartment.
His name was Graham Mercer.
Thirty-nine. Divorced. Worked in payroll for the city. Owned exactly two winter coats, drove a ten-year-old Subaru, and had the social confidence of a nervous houseplant.
I was completely crazy about him.
Which was embarrassing, considering he seemed convinced I kissed everyone in Wisconsin.
Technically, he had a point.
I grew up in São Paulo, Brazil, where kissing someone on the cheek is a perfectly ordinary greeting. When I moved to Milwaukee, I brought that habit with me.
